Impossibly long lashes aren't just for Hollywood closeups and drag queens anymore. Miley Cyrus has really been playing up her lashes. Even First Lady Michelle Obama appears to be embracing the trend, with the British press reporting that she donned false eyelashes in London in April.

Although women have been applying kohl to their lids to enhance the size and shape of their eyes since ancient-Egyptian times, the idea of pasting on fake lashes didn't strike until 1916 when film director D.W. Griffith hired a wigmaker to concoct them (out of human hair and gauze) to give actresses a more glamorous...